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Yes to the burkini, and also no: Mallick

One is basically wearing a coat to the beach. And I say it’s a coat of shame, however much one doesn’t want to admit this

Police fine the first person for wearing a burkini on the Promenade des Anglais beach in Nice, France on Tuesday. The cops made the woman remove her clothing in front of fellow beach goers following the recent burkini ban. (Best Images/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES)

Aren’t burkinis wonderful? No, they’re not. But feel free to wear one, is my opinion, which is somewhat irrelevant as the whole point of feminism is to offer women choice. Do as you wish, I say.

One step forward, two steps back. France’s highest administrative court has just suspended the ban on burkinis in one test case in a small town near Nice. Meanwhile, the photo of armed male police officers (and nine cowardly onlookers) humiliating a conservatively dressed Muslim woman on the beach at the Promenade des Anglais where a terrorist killed 86 people this year is appalling. The killer loathed women. Whose side are the police on?

But it is also complicated and worth studying. Look at those bullies standing over her in their silly uniforms. If this is a fight over clothing, my weapon is ridicule. The cops are wearing shorts. How immodest. Worse, they’re cargo shorts, dreadful things.

These pompous men in black look just as authoritarian as extremist religionist men do, but it stops at the knee where their pants suddenly get silly. If you’re going to abbreviate the leg, do it higher up. Your shorts should not be longer than your gun.

This is one of my many unasked-for opinions on men’s clothing. The officer on the right is wearing elasticated trousers. This looks wonderful on toddlers whose legs seem to expand overnight. But on a cop? Never embark on a pair of pants without an end point. A grown man should buy pants that hit just above the boots he places on a woman’s blue and yellow towelling as he torments her.

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Speaking of beach towelling, in what sense is this a beach? Beaches are made of sand, which is why I don’t like them. These people are lying on a pile of rocks. Sand may creep into crevices but rocks are just abusive.

What I’m saying is that no one willingly exposes nude flesh to acres of hot rubble. The burkini is a wonderful choice for countries — Britain is another — that don’t understand the beach concept.

I note, however, that the beach gravel here is uniform and beautifully rounded. French gravel is so styled I keep it as souvenirs from vacations in France, a country whose precision I admire. I’m studying a five-sided pointy piece of gravel from the Musée des Arts Decoratifs cafe in Paris right now.

Imagine lying on that naked. What you need on a French beach is two burkinis. Layering is your friend.

But the Egyptian blogger Nevana Mahmoud has posted about “the right not to wear a burkini.” In Egypt swimming is a luxury for women who can afford club memberships, she says, while public spaces are “havens for men harassing women by gazing, staring, and even groping them.”

In this sense the burkini helps a little, especially in Egypt where public life is a torment for women. As a liberal woman, Mahmoud likes it; as a Muslim woman she does not. She says it symbolizes the perception that women who cover up are “superior.” As well, she sees it as a slippery slope, a cave-in to extremists. “The more women give in and cover up, the more the advocates of regression will raise the stakes.”

Am I an immodest atheist woman then? Charming as Zanetti’s manifesto is, Zanetti worried about designing a somewhat fitted garment that might still be considered daring in some circles. The head and neck are covered and the hips and belly have double layers.

One is basically wearing a coat to the beach. And I say it’s a coat of shame, however much one doesn’t want to admit this, and it is men who decided that women and girls should be ashamed. Women and girls may decide to agree with the men but they must know that the shame didn’t start with them.

That said, wear the burkini happily, at work, at home or on a rocky shore. If it makes a woman feel safe or safer, that’s a good thing. And the unhappier it makes a French policeman, the more cheerful I will be.

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